TECH SPECS

Price: $199

Processor: 1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200

Display: 5-inch LCD, 960 x 540 pixels

Operating system: Windows Phone 8.1

Camera: 5 megapixels (rear)

Battery: 1,905mAh

RATING

Features 3/5

Design 4/5

Performance 3/5

Value for money 3/5

Battery life 3/5

Overall 3/5

But the things have to still change under Microsoft. The telephones of Lumia maintain their designs coloured and they always run Windows Phone 8.1 . In fact, Lumia 535, available here since December, is the first telephone of Lumia to drop the name from Nokia.

This is a budget phone, not a flagship model. Its design, typical of
Lumia models, has a plastic back cover which can be swopped with
similarly brightly coloured versions. A 5-inch screen dominates the
front. Surrounding it is a surprisingly thin bezel.

The device has a removable battery, a microSD card slot and two
micro SIM slots, but it has only 3G connectivity. The microSD slot
supports cards with a storage capacity of up to 128GB. This is a
must-have feature as the Lumia has a miserly internal storage of just
8GB.

Like those of many budget phones, its screen is not very good. While
viewing angles are decent, the screen is highly reflective, probably
because of the gap between the external glass and the LCD. Colours look
washed out and the screen is easily smudged, though this is mitigated
when I turn up the brightness level.

In addition, the mediocre screen resolution (960 x 540 pixels) makes
everything look slightly fuzzy. This includes photos that you take with
its basic 5-megapixel rear camera. But at least the camera app felt
snappy.

As entry-level phones go, the $199 phone is not as attractive as the
Xiaomi Redmi 1S. The Redmi offers a higher-resolution 1,280 x 720-pixel
screen (albeit at 4.7 inches), a faster Qualcomm chip and an
8-megapixel rear camera for $169. The Redmi also supports dual SIM
cards. Crucially, it runs Android, which has more than a million apps.

To its credit, Microsoft has improved Windows Phone since my last
experience with it. There is now a decent pull-down menu with
notifications and quick access to settings. However, the variety of
apps in the Windows Store, especially games, still lags behind Android
and iOS.

The battery of this Lumia will probably last you slightly over a day, depending on your usage.

The first Microsoft Lumia is a decent budget handset which is
unlikely to entice iOS or Android users to convert to Windows Phone.